From the cover of the forthcoming Entertainment Weekly.

Speak now, Blog@ nation! What say you?

Hello, readers. Newsarama Site Editor Lucas Siegel here. We were about to present our next installment of Blog@Ween II when we received some distressing news. It seems that Blog@Ween writer Troy Brownfield was ambushed on his way to interview the X-Men for the next installment.

Though it took a few minutes for Troy to convince us that he was suffering from a head injury and not an excessive number of Red Bull and Vodka (we please refer you to our Wizard World Chicago ’08 coverage), it turns out that Troy was actually waylaid by the Merc with a Mouth (if he’s not in movies), Deadpool. Though affiliated X-team leader Cyclops denied an official affiliation with Deadpool in a statement (“No, Deadpool is not on an X-team. Wait, why is Logan laughing?”), the talkative adventurer apparently wanted to make sure that his thoughts were heard.

Here, then, from Troy’s recording, are Deadpool’s comments, left alongside a photo that he apparently selected himself.

Deadpool: Why am I so surprised? Is someone in the room wearing a Dazzler costume? Am I surprised cause she’s hot? Or because she is HE? And what’s with the red socks? Do they even come with the costume, cause putting aside the fact that they look stupid and aren’t even the same color red as my costume, if they don’t come in the costume bag then this is FALSE ADVERTISING! And what’s with all the EMPTY POUCHES?! Those need to be filled with SPAWN POGS, sticks of Garbage Pail Kids Bubble Gum and Siryn’s belly button lint! And yeah, yeah, yeah, I know that they were called Spogz, but if I said that most people wouldn’t get the reference! What’s this?! No guns?! What kind of role-model am I gonna be to kids without my guns?! A gun is a quick sanitized death, killing people with a sword can take hours! …If done right. AND because we’ve conveniently left off my gloves, your finger prints are gonna be all over the crime scene! You know what this costume says? ARREST ME! And you KNOW that they took that SWORD off their BACK-STOCK of LEONARDO COSTUMES too! Man, I look like a MUTANT LEMUR on his way to a SOCK HOP to distribute all the PIZZA to party goers! >BER-RING!< Sorry, one second I just got a text message from Weasel…”The costume people say it’s either THIS or NOTHING and they want to know what you think?” They want to know what I think? I’ll tell ‘em what I think…

I love it.

SIEGEL: Thank you for your patience, readers. Troy will be back soon with his actual X-Men interview, a friendly sit down with Cyclops, Emma Frost, Wolverine, Beast and a couple of others. As for Deadpool, we’d make a couple more jokes about the character’s recent inexplicable popularity explosion, but Twitter is already over capacity, and those 501 jeans hurt when they’re in a bunch.

[This has been your Blog@Ween Interlude, a Blog@Newsarama production. The part of Lucas Siegel was played by Troy Brownfield, and the part of Deadpool was played by "Toy Story"/"Dead Romeo"/"Strangeland: Seven Sins" writer and star of A&E's "Growing Up Twisted", Jesse Blaze Snider.]

It’s that time again; the Legion must elect a new leader. This time, though, cast your votes at DCComics.com. Direct yourself here to make your selection.

Twenty-five active members appear on the ballot, including that asshat Earth Man. Notably absent from the ballot is Lightning Lad; I can’t recall if they’ve covered this in the current run, but Garth has shown little interest in leading the team again after all the suffering he went through in previous bouts of leadership. Frankly, I’d kinda like to see one of the “more alien” members like Gates, Tellus or Quislet get the nod, particularly in the face of the xenophobia that’s so rampant in the Legion’s time (and our time, unfortunately).

Polls are open until November 10. Remember: a vote for the Legion is a vote for the future. Or in the future. Something about the future. Ah hell. Long live the Legion!

Last year, Newsarama sent me on assignment to various locations (and universes) to talk to some of your favorite heroes about the Halloween costumes based on their images. At times, it was enlightening. At times, it was sad (poor Spidey). And, at times, it was dangerous (that Hulk; he’s a hugger). This year, we’re doing it again, and we’re kicking things off with a visit to the 616. Our trip begins at the home of Tony Stark.

Jarvis: Welcome, sir. Master Tony asked me to meet you; I’m his butler, Edwin Jarvis.

NRAMA: Nice to meet you.

Jarvis: Before we begin, I’d like you to note one thing, please, sir.

NRAMA: Sure.

Jarvis: I’m not a bloody computer. I don’t care if Paul Bettany voices me. I don’t care if I get to ride inside Ms. Potts’ knickers in your comics books. I am quite human, sir.

NRAMA: Uh, so noted.

Jarvis: Good, then. Please follow me. You should have an interesting time today. Master Tony is quite, what’s the word?

NRAMA: Eccentric.

Jarvis: Plastered.

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According to the Heat Vision blog of The Hollywood Reporter, Disney acquired today the distribution rights for “Avengers” and “Iron Man 3″. After the acquisition, Disney and Marvel prompty announced a date of May 3, 2013 for the thrid installment in the Iron Man series. The report indicates that original distributor Paramount will receive $115 million in exchange for the pair of films, regardless of performance. You can read all of the details here.

Our Take: This is nothing but win for all involved. Paramount makes bank on two big movies without doing a thing. The two films will make and merchandise more than enough to make Disney happy (serious, they stand to crush over $100 million on DVDs alone). It’s an added little boost to the debut of the Avengers animated series on DisneyXD this week. Paramount still gets to put out “Cap” and “Thor”, not to mention actually devoting more time to the other franchises that it has already rebuilt (Star Trek) or are revamping (Mission: Impossible, Jack Ryan, etc.). This is a GREAT move.

The only possible downside is that if Cap and Thor are hits, Disney may want to pony up again. In that case, I’d bet that Paramount makes them pay more dearly. My other question in all of this would be: If Hulk is in Avengers, and Hulk is also bound for TV, is the intention of Disney to pay up for Mark Ruffalo in order to make him TV’s Bruce Banner?

You remember what happened last year . . .

http://blog.newsarama.com/2009/10/15/what-would-steve-rogers-think/

http://blog.newsarama.com/2009/10/16/blogween-what-hulk-think/

http://blog.newsarama.com/2009/10/17/blogween-what-would-watchmen-think/

http://blog.newsarama.com/2009/10/27/blogween-what-would-the-jla-think/

http://blog.newsarama.com/2009/10/29/blogween-what-would-spider-man-think/

http://blog.newsarama.com/2009/10/30/blogween-finale-what-would-batman-think/

You have been warned.

Blog@ween II. Coming soon to a Blog@ near you.

Even as we cover panels and announcements, more news continues to roll in from various quarters. DC’s The Source blog had a busy day today. Among the notes . . .

Spencer for Hire: Nick Spencer, known for his flotilla of Image titles and DCU work (the Jimmy Olsen co-feature in Action and the reborn T.H.U.N.D.E.R. Agents), will be the new writer of Supergirl. Artist Bernarnd Chang will join him in January.

Mayhew On Target: Mike Mayhew does Green Arrow again, this time in issue 7 of the current ongoing. This one drops in December.

First Looks Abound: The Source is also previewing Batman: The Dark Knight #1 and Batman Inc. #1.

Keep with Blog@ and the Newsarama mothership for more news throughout the weekend.

Sorry about the headline; I was legally obligated to use that pun. Seriously, though, it’s right there. DC’s own Mera makes her live-action debut on “Smallville” in October, this from Michael Ausiello at Entertainment Weekly. Apparently, when Aquaman appears again, he’ll have already married his extra-dimensional sweetheart. Mera is being played by Elena Satine, a Russian-born actress known stateside for stints in “Melrose Place” (the new version) and some horror fare.

Here she is . . .

OUTRAGEOUS. Er, uh, nice work, King Arthur.

At any rate, it’s been a good year-and-a-half for Mera. She got major play in “Blackest Night”, she finally gets to be the subject of not one, but two action figures from DC Direct, and she gets to show up on “Smallville” in addition to appearing from time to time on “Batman: The Brave and the Bold”. Kind of makes being attacked by your non-zombie baby a distant memory.

I can only speak for myself here, but since hearing about the news that Zack Snyder has been named director of the next Superman film, “The Man of Steel”, I’ve come to some pretty definite conclusions about what I would and would not like to see. While I’m sure debate will continue about the choice of Snyder (my own pick would have been Brad Bird, currently locked up with “Mission: Impossible IV”), I think that he might be capable of making a fast-moving, visceral Superman film that we haven’t seen before. As for the rest of it . . .

1) Enough of the Origin: I said this elsewhere, but it bears repeating: “We all know the origin. Superman’s origin is so well-known that my mother, my grandparents, and my cats could all recount it (I shouldn’t really need to specify that my dad, my wife, and my kids know it). Confine it to the opening credits if you must show it at all.”

2) F@#$ Subtle: I like character. I like nuance. I like the underpinnings of human behavior. This is SUPERMAN. And we haven’t seen Superman really, truly unload on screen. Even in “Superman Returns”, with its great plane crash sequence, most of the rest of his action involved the lifting of heavy objects. And that was about it. Even if we have two hours of the most beautifully crafted acting and humanely rendered interpersonal communication, give us a good half-hour of him beating the unholy crap out of Bizarro or something. He’s the MAN OF STEEL. Show it.

3) A Different Villain/A Different Montage: I understand that Zod will be the villain again. I suppose it’s too late to change that, but I’m fairly tired of the fact that Luthor or Zod must always be the villain. Out of five “Superman” movies, Luthor figured in four of them; Zod and gang were in “II” and Zod was in a lot of “Smallville” lately. Apart from beating the crap out of himself in “Superman III”, Superman on the big-screen has only fought a computer-possessed businessman’s sister (III) and the manicure-challenged Nuclear Man (IV) outside of Luthor and Zod’s gang.

Compare that to Batman, who has gotten to tangle with (between all seven movies) the Joker (three times), the Penguin (twice), Catwoman (twice), the Riddler (twice), Two-Face (twice), Mr. Freeze, Poison Ivy, Bane, the Scarecrow, Zsasz, Ra’s Ah Ghul, various familiar mobsters, and more. Granted, some of those versions sucked, but Batman’s variety was on display. Granted again, “Smallville” has beat the movies to the punch a few times, but what about Brainiac (with skull ship)? What about Bizarro? What about Bob? (sorry, got carried away).

At the very least, please replace the semi-obligatory montage of Superman stopping robbers and rescuing kittens with a montage that shows him taking on a couple of actual villains. You don’t need to deal with them past the montage; just give Superman some scope. Barring that, at least show him stopping a flood or catch a falling satellite rather than grabbing a cat burglar this time. He’s SUPERMAN for God’s sake.

4) Let Lois Know: Don’t be coy. Don’t be ambiguous. Let Lois know, and let us know she knows. Lois should be smart, even cunning. She should be a challenge to Clark/Kal both mentally and morally. What do I mean by morally? Lois as a crusading reporter should be a personality that pushes Superman to make real change in the world. Their conflicts could stem from her thinking that Superman isn’t actually doing enough in the face of the problems of the planet. That would be a different tack, and it could energize that relationship.

5) Appropriate Color: The “Returns” costume was too muted and Snyder’s previous films have occasionally been murky. Mr. Snyder: pump up the volume on the color. You have SUPERMAN. You have the weight of great production people behind you. Make this thing pop and sing. It doesn’t have to be “Speed Racer”, but it should be vibrant and alive. It’s SUPERMAN. He’s not Batman, and he’s damn sure not “Flash meets Silence of the Lambs” (really, who thought of that pitch, how bad was their childhood, and what drugs were they subsequently put on to make them suggest that?). Brighten it up. It won’t hurt anyone.

There’s my thoughts. What say you, readers?

As confirmed at Marvel.com, the much-anticipated “Avengers: Earth’s Mightest Heroes” hits the air on Wednesday, October 20th at 8:30 pm EST on DisneyXD. But wait, there’s more!

Beginning Wednesday, September 22, Disney XD, DisneyXD.com/Avengers, Marvel.com, MarvelKids.com and Disney XD Mobile will roll out 20 micro-episodes introducing the team’s core members. Each five-and-half-minute episode focuses on the back story, allies and nemeses of the heroes before the Avengers were formed.

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Some questions posed by the new “Heroes for Hire” teaser . . .

1) Are Abnett and Lanning out of the cosmic titles, as rumored?

2) Is Moon Knight out of Secret Avengers?

3) Does The Punisher think “Hey, I’m gonna kill villains anyway; I might as well get paid for it?” Doesn’t that just make sense?

4) Does Ghost Rider have the most diverse resume in comics? Agent of darkness, angel, stunt cyclist, Champion, hero for hire, fry cook at Denny’s, etc.

5) Isn’t it strange that Misty Knight gets a solo teaser but doesn’t make the group poster?

6) Marvel Math: How many Marvel films are represented by this one image, and how many of them were bad?

7) Is there any doubt that Abnett and Lanning will do a great job with this idea?

Readers, questions?

This one’s interesting. In the wake of some recent controversy surrounding promotion opportunities and the fact that part three of “Grounded” in “Superman” was running one month late, we see now via DC’s The Source blog that the fourth part will be supplanted by a fill-in, er, “interlude”.

Writer G. Willow Wilson (AIR) and newcomer Leandro Oliveira provide a “Grounded” interlude in October’s SUPERMAN #704, detailing a visit Lois Lane makes to the town where she went to college in anticipation of Superman’s arrival. When she runs into an old boyfriend and sees the nice, normal family he has, Lois is can’t help but examine the choices she made and wonder if they were the correct ones.

For the record, I understand that JMS was sick. I get sick. We all get sick and f— up at work. I get that. What I don’t get is how major storylines at major publishers so frequently twist in the wind because of circumstance. Shouldn’t everything be done far enough in advance so that JMS CAN get sick? Should a whole schedule be derailed because one part of the larger machine is unable, for good reason, to function that day or week? The fans can handle it; if a book’s late, we can deal with it. But, honestly, doesn’t it seem like the retailers are constantly taking the brunt of this kind of thing in the face?

Back on September 10th, we made the following post:

1. Produce a body of work.
2. Potentially alienate your industry in a series of interviews.
3. Make music.

Quick . . . who is it?

[Alan Moore photo by Jose Villarubia, via Swindle Magazine]

Update: Answer? One was kidding.

This is Ultraa.

This is Ultra the Multi-Alien. Ultra the Multi-Alien is not Ultraa.

This is Ultra Boy, Ultra-Humanite (with DJ Rubber Ducky and Santa Flash), and Ultra Detergent.

Everybody got that?

Yesterday, I posted on the apparent confusion that “Justice League: Generation Lost” editor Brian Cunningham was experiencing in terms of Ice and Icemaiden. We weren’t the only ones to discuss the issue; comments on the original blog post at DC’s The Source and a couple of threads on DC’s own message boards also flew.

In addition to several fans being generally annoyed at the editorial gaffe/possible retcon in progress, there were several comments about the look and attitude of the character as described by Cunningham. Many fear the “darkening” of Ice, a character noted largely for her innocence and sunny disposition (except when she dresses up as the dirty female version of her boyfriend’s boss and suggests that they have three-way-Gilligan’s Island-themed sex with a power-ring-generated participant).

Regardless, a fair number of comments noted that the new look Ice might be too similar to Killer Frost. I challenge that assessment. She’s too close to the Water Blast Iceman from the “Spider-Man & Friends” line of action figures.

What do you think, readers?

Sometimes, fans can be hard on companies. Sometimes, companies do it to themselves. Take, for example, this blog entry at DC’s The Source, discussing “Justice League: Generation Lost” #12, and the story involving Ice.

If you’ve been reading JUSTICE LEAGUE: GENERATION LOST, you know the character’s been going through her share of soul-searching. But how does one character go from pensive, shy flower to elemental badass? Let’s ask JL: GL editor Brian Cunningham.

“For those of us that read the Super Friends series in the 1970s where Ice was originally introduced as Ice Maiden, we all know how absurd her origin was. With Gen Lost #12, writer Judd Winick provides Ice with a credible and tragic origin that does not negate what we already know. And the consequences of this new origin are pretty explosive, as Aaron Lopresti’s amazing art shows.”

All well and good. EXCEPT . . . Icemaiden isn’t Ice. Ice is a totally different character. The Icemaiden that first appeared in non-continuity “Super Friends” #9 in 1977 was Sigrid Nansen. Tora, our Ice, didn’t appear until “JLI” #12 in 1988.

Granted, there was even confusion at DC then, born out of the fact that some thought that Icemaiden had never been named, but she had. This backstory was handled and reconciled when IceMAIDEN joined the League after Tora (Ice) died. (For the record, Icemaiden’s first canonical appearance was in “Infinty Inc.” #32 from 1986).

Icemaiden has appeared in other stories over time, including being duped by The Mist II during the run of “Starman”; The Mist II then disguised herself as Icemaiden to kill several members of Justice League Europe. Also, Icemaiden appeared in a 2007 “JSA Classified” story. During her run in “Justice League American”, it was revealed that Icemaiden is Jewish (as opposed to the Norwegian-gods descended Tora) and bisexual (one of the few heroines to be identified as such).

So, my question is this: if fans can remember this, why can’t editorial?

Taking a close look at the new shows in the offing for the Fall television season, you’ll see a fair number of genre offerings. The question here is simple: are you interested? Let’s look at a few.

The Event (NBC): May or may not be genre-related in the conventional sense. It certainly wants to be mysterious, but the hyping of “The Event” pretty much demands that “The Event” is something huge. If “The Event” turns out to be a terrorist attack, a conventional conspiracy, or something overly familiar, I expect this show to fade quickly. Then again, NBC displayed near-legendary patience with “Heroes”.

Nikita (CW): Genre in the sense of pulpy action, the show (which debuted last night) is marketed more or less on the body of Maggie Q. If you checked it out, did you check it out because you like Nikita (now in her FOURTH pop culture iteration) or did you check it to check Maggie out?

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1. Produce a body of work.
2. Potentially alienate your industry in a series of interviews.
3. Make music.

Quick . . . who is it?

[Alan Moore photo by Jose Villarubia, via Swindle Magazine]

Jess Peacock returns with a new pair from The Crawlspace. First up . . .

Review: Go, Mutants! by Larry Doyle

As a kid growing up in central Ohio, the weekends were a very distinctive time for me. There was no school obviously, but Fridays and Saturdays throughout my childhood also provided a specifically unique education. With horror host instructors such as Big Chuck and Little John on channel 8, Super Host on channel 43, and the Ghoul on channel 61, I was emotionally raptured into an otherworld filled with monsters from the farthest reaches of space and beyond. Others could have their football games and Wide World of Sports; I was more concerned with blithely living in a universe filled with giant lizards, Ro-Men, She-Creatures, and horrors on various party beaches.
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In case you missed the news coming from Hasbro at San Diego, the well-liked Marvel Legends line of action figures returns in 2012. While that yet seems like a long way off, it’s sensible on a couple of fronts (namely, in that it coincides with the release date of “The Avengers”). To tide fans over, three two-packs exclusive to Toys R Us arrive this fall (Valkyrie/Hulk, Winter Soldier/Black Widow, Deadpool/Warpath). I thought that we might take a look at what Hasbro might do to ratchet up the chances of reborn success for the line, which admittedly stumbled a bit in the years after it transitioned to them from Toy Biz.

Step One: Variant Control

Though this was more of a problem under Toy Biz, it bears repeating that there shouldn’t be variants for every figure in an assortment, particularly when those variants create an entirely separate character. Look at Marvel Legends assortment 12, the Apocalypse Series. There were seven figures and SIX additional variants, although only one variant, the White Sasquatch, technically made a separate character. It was worse in wave 15, the MODOK Series. There were six figures and SEVEN variants; of those variants, three actually created separate characters that were in some cases (Destroyer, I’m looking at you) all but impossible for some fans to get.

Hasbro did manage to excise this practice when they took over, and I’d recommend that they stick to it. I don’t think that throwing in a variant of a many-costumed character like The Wasp is crazy. I do find it unreasonable when you take a character that everyday collectors might want and intentionally design a circumstance where that figure offers ridiculous difficulty to find. Stay fan-friendly.

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